>A new book on Comintern
>
>Espionage and the Roots of the Cold War
>By David McKnight, Frank Cass & Co, London 2002.
>
>I am writing to alert you to my new book which I thought might 
>interest you. The book uses little known archives from Comintern to 
>give a scholarly explanation of the circumstances  which lead to Cold 
>War ‘witch hunts’ and accusations of treachery. In their opposition 
>to these allegations, the Left and their liberal allies scorned the 
>possibility that there could be any truth to the charges of 
>espionage.  
>
>But the book argues that from the 1930s to the 1950s a significant 
>number of men and women in the United States, Britain, Europe, 
>Australia and Canada were recruited to the Soviet intelligence 
>services.  Fired by idealism, they believed that the Soviet Union was 
>the prototype of a new society that would lead to human liberation. 
>They believed that conveying confidential material from their own 
>governments to the Soviet Union was part of a revolutionary struggle 
>against capitalism and imperialism. While the best known names are 
>those of Philby, Burgess and Maclean,  there were hundreds of others. 
>Most  regarded their work as ‘politics’ and not espionage.  
>
>The bulk of the book examines the tradition of underground political 
>work in Comintern which was a highly secret part of the communist 
>movement between 1917 until the late 60s.  Originally it was referred 
>to by its Russian name of <konspiratsya>.   In this way, this book 
>also examines  the social and political origins of the ‘tradecraft’ 
>of espionage since <konspiratsya> was a highly successful method of 
>operating.  
>
>Buying the book:
>The cheapest way to buy the book in on-line. Go to < frankcass.com >
>and then click < search > then enter the author name <mcknight >  (Or
>Search ‘What’s New’  in the ‘Studies In Intelligence’ Series) The
>paper back costs 17 English pounds.
>
>** Dr David McKnight is a member of the Advisory Board for the Oxford
>Companion to Espionage. He teaches at the Humanities Faculty at the
>University of Technology, Sydney in Australia.    He has researched
>and written about politics and espionage for the last 15 years. His
>previous book, Australia’s Spies and their Secrets, won the Douglas
>Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction.